Manchester Biocentre Develops Nanoarray for Protien Analysis

Researchers at The University of Manchester have developed a much more efficient method for making biological chips which could lead to faster results for the detection of MRSA and also the discovery of new drugs.

Researchers at The University of Manchester have developed a much more efficient method for making biological ‘chips’ which could lead to faster results for the detection of MRSA and also the discovery of new drugs.Researchers from The University of Manchester have been working alongside teams at Sheffield, Nottingham and Glasgow on a £3.1 million project with the aim of developing ‘nanoarrays’.These arrays would allow thousands more protein samples to be placed on a single ‘chip’ than current methods. This has the potential to reduce costs and vastly increasing the volume of data that could be simultaneously collected.Researchers at the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB) and The School of Chemistry published a paper describing the new technique for producing functional ‘protein chips’ in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS).Prof Jason Micklefield from the School of Chemistry, said: “The method we have developed could have profound applications in the diagnosis of disease, screening of new drugs and in the detection of bacteria, pollutants, toxins and other molecules.”